Berlin Wall & Cold War Bike Tour

This bike tour in other languages?

Click here for the German “Berliner Mauer Radtour”
Click here for the Dutch “Berlijnse Muur Fietstocht”

Cycling along the Berlin Wall on a guided bike tour

The Berlin Wall was far more than just a wall. It embodied the pain of separation suffered by families and communities during the German division following World War II, and was the most potent symbol of the global struggle between communism and capitalism during the Cold War. On this guided bike tour, we let you experience the traces of the physical Wall that remain in Berlin, and we reconstruct for you this decisive and painful period of Berlin’s and Germany’s history.

Cold War in Berlin – A divided city

Few families remained untouched by the division of the city: parents were separated from children, lovers wound up on the ‘wrong’ side of the Berlin Wall and young people wishing to escape the restrictions of East German society had to risk their lives trying to escape over it. 

A guided bicycle tour along the former death strip of the Berlin Wall

Your guide will tell you all about the background of the Cold War and how it led to the division of Germany, but also about life in East Germany, escape attempts and more. The fifteen kilometer route takes in many of the important sites of Berlin Wall history, including the bridge where the first checkpoint of the Wall fell at Bornholmer Strasse in 1989, the Berlin Wall memorial, the government district, and even Checkpoint Charlie, the site of a dangerous stand-off between Russian and American tanks in 1961 as well as several spectacular escape attempts. 

See remains of the Berlin Wall on a guided bike tour

Along the way you will encounter one of the few remaining watch towers, the death strip, and hidden stretches of the infamous ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier’ as it was called in the communist East. You will also see places like Mauer Park, where old portions of the Berlin Wall & No Man’s land have been redeveloped into vibrant centers of the city’s cultural and social life. 

The Berlin Wall – History and personal stories

We explain why the Berlin Wall was built and why it fell, report on harassments at former border crossings, and tell of dramatic tunnel escapes and window jumps at the Berlin Wall on Bernauer Straße.

Here occurred some of the most famous and spectacular escape attempts from East Germany, including the famous jump over the wall by Conrad Schumann. This young East German border guard leaped over the barbed wire to the West just 2 days after the start of the wall’s construction in 1961.

The photo of his courageous leap went around the world and became a symbol of the East German citizens’ irrepressible desire for freedom. Today, a life-size version of this photo at the original site on Bernauer Straße commemorates his escape.

These and many other moving stories revolve around life with the Berlin Wall, life in East Germany and under the Stasi, as well as the days surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and German reunification. Some of these stories were experienced by our guides themselves, some are funny, many are sad, and often simply incredible.

Our city guides link stories and locations of the Berlin Wall together to make this chapter of German and Berlin history come alive before your eyes!

What will you see on the Berlin Wall Bike Tour?

• Life in a neighbourhood just next to the Berlin Wall – Prenzlauer Berg
• Zionskirche – the role of the church in East Germany
• Bornholmer Straße – site of the Fall of the Wall
• Melting pot Mauerpark
• Escape attempts at Bernauer Straße
• Berlin Wall Memorial
• Death strip & ghost station at Nordbahnhof
• Former watch tower at Kieler Eck – now Günther Litfin memorial
• Government District & Brandenburg Gate – where Berlin grows together
• Checkpoint Charlie
• The Palace of Tears – checkpoint Friedrichstraße

Our guides adapt the Berlin Wall Bike Tour to weather conditions, participants’s interests, street closures and sometimes their own preferences. Changes and deviations are possible.